


Dream Walker

by calloftheocean, DiminishingReturns



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Aziraphale & Anathema Device Friendship, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Rating May Change, Supernatural Elements, Tattoo Artist Crowley (Good Omens), Warlock Dowling Joins The Them (background), liminal spaces, museum curator Aziraphale, surreal dream imagery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29413206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calloftheocean/pseuds/calloftheocean, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiminishingReturns/pseuds/DiminishingReturns
Summary: Azra Fell has never dreamt his own dreams. Instead, he is pulled through other people's dreamscapes every night, able to observe but never to interact. That is, until a mysterious stranger draws him in one night and throws a wrench in everything he thought he knew about reality.(it's crowley, the mysterious stranger is crowley)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 32
Collections: Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang





	Dream Walker

**Author's Note:**

> Created for the 2021 Good Omens reverse big bang, based on the absolutely incredible art and story prompt by calloftheocean (find call and their art on [tumblr](https://call-of-the-ocean.tumblr.com/) and [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/call_of_the_ocean/)). Seriously, getting to work with call and write for their ideas on this has been a privilege that I still can’t quite wrap my head around.
> 
> It's worth noting that the museum Aziraphale works at in this story is completely fictional and not based on any actual London locations. We were more interested in the dreams and the characters than putting in the time to recreate real world settings. As such, this can be considered an Alternate London.
> 
> Tags and rating may change, with anything major that might come up being added up top (max rating of M and no major archive warnings, we promise that up front). Otherwise, we'll be doing warnings by chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content warnings for the nature of this chapter's nightmare can be found in the chapter end notes.**

Azra had been sitting in the stairwell long enough that he could no longer realistically call his presence there anything other than _hiding_. It was the kind of wonderfully bland place that was gentle on all the senses. Grey stone and steel, a chill to the air, an absence of clutter, sound, people. At first, he’d convinced himself that he’d simply ducked in here to have a quiet moment to check his phone; the blasted thing had been buzzing in his pocket all morning and he was starting to worry it might be something actually important. Ten minutes later, however, he was through the backlog of messages (thirty-six in total, all of them from Anathema, all of them snarky) and searching for excuses to extend his stairwell respite.

 _Can’t today. I’ll be working late setting up the new exhibition,_ he typed out. It was the tenth response he’d written out, and after staring at the words until the screen’s backlight dimmed, he finally hit send.

Anathema’s reply was immediate.

> _wow_   
>  _u were typing for like a year_   
>  _i was expecting a novel_   
>  _didn’t the new exhibit go live on monday?_   
>  _they actually working you into the ground or are you avoiding me_   
>  _-_-_

Azra sighed down at his phone and composed his answer slowly.

_You know how new exhibitions are. It’s at least a week of putting out fires, nothing ever goes exactly to plan. Remember the Bilton & Scaggs collection from two years ago?_

> _it haunts me still_

_Well this one is on that level so far. I’m starting to wonder if all the superstitious nonsense attached to these relics actually has a grain of truth in it somewhere._

> _NO_   
>  _WHAT_   
>  _gdi fell_   
>  _you can't just say shit like that_   
>  _now you HAVE to hang out w me_   
>  _i need this story like i need air_

_And you shall have it, of course. Just… perhaps once I’ve had a chance to recover from two hours on the phone with a frantic Gabriel? The man sees every minor mishap as the end of the world._

> _ew_

_‘Ew’ indeed. You’re going back in the pocket now. I have just enough time to acquire tea before my next meeting._

> _…_   
>  _acquire tea…_   
>  _you’re such a nerd ilu so much_

He thumbed the screen off and put the phone away. It buzzed a few more times, Anathema yelling from his pocket, but he ignored it in favor of steeling himself to head downstairs. Thursday afternoon meant Elanor would be the barista on duty in the museum cafe. A friendly and quick-witted young lady, who, in spite of a truly bizarre obsession with marine biology, was a person he never minded interacting with. She was a known variable, and known variables were extremely welcome in weeks like this one.

He drew in one more deep breath, then pushed himself to his feet and headed down the stairs to rejoin the world.

* * *

Two hours later, the tea sat cold and forgotten on his desk. The meeting with the lead conservationist had bled into a conference call with the heads of four other departments, and ended with Azra needing to visit the exhibit hall. In _person_. During _normal visiting hours_. To deal with a technical issue so far outside of his jurisdiction that he didn’t have a clue which department to hand it off to. Anathema had been buzzing in his pocket through all of it and he was, quite frankly, _done_ with today.

He had barely sunk into the chair behind his desk, eyes squeezed shut and fingers pressed into his temple, when the door to his office burst open again.

“Are. You. _Shitting me._ ”

Azra sighed and leaned his head back, opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “Hello Warlock.”

“Gabriel’s losing his whole mind and some of mine too,” said Warlock, disconcertingly delighted at the prospect of a distraught Gabriel. “One of the books was apparently shipped to the wrong branch and he’s acting like the damn sky’s falling. Pepper won’t shut up about _The Curse_ , Wensley just well-actuallys me whenever I try to figure out what the hell The Curse even _is_ , and Brian called in sick. Brian! The stubborn bastard that insisted on coming to work with pneumonia last year! What the _fuck,_ man? How am I the last person to find out about the shipment of amazingly cursed artifacts to come through our museum?”

“Because there’s nothing to find out. Superstitious nonsense and self-fulfilling prophecies—”

“Nice,” Warlock interrupted with a snort of laughter.

Azra brought his gaze down from the ceiling to shoot daggers at the intern. “—perpetuated by attitudes like _this_ ,” he said, releasing his temple to wave vaguely in Warlock’s direction. “I mean, _honestly_ , the idea that books of prophecy and witchcraft have a _curse_ attached to them is so… so…” He moved his wrist in circles, searching for a word that accurately described his irritation. He gave up and let his hand thump to the desk, settling for, “Deeply unoriginal.”

“Okay, but consider: it’s cool as hell.”

“You don’t even know what it is,” Azra said with a scoff. “Perhaps this _‘cool as hell’_ curse has a footnote about the unfortunate demise of nosy American exchange students who wear too much eyeliner.”

“If this is my burden to bear, then so be it,” Warlock replied, one hand pressed dramatically against his heart. “Anything to make the history books more interesting.”

“History indeed,” Azra said, a small laugh escaping in spite of himself. Warlock gnawed at his patience in a way that no one else did, but the way the intern treated their work at the museum—the respect he had for the quiet histories that lived between the lines, in art and artifacts—was infuriatingly endearing. Besides, it was impossible to stay cross with anyone who harbored a secret love for Julie Andrews movies. “And speaking of history, don’t you have work to do? I’m quite certain we’re not paying you to haunt my office.”

“You are, actually. Gabriel sent me down here. To you specifically. Something about making myself _‘and Fell while you’re at it’_ useful,” Warlock said, puffing his chest and sticking out his chin as he mimicked their boss.

“Wonderful. How professional of him,” Azra grumbled. “Tell you what. There _is_ actually an issue in the main hall that I would very much appreciate you taking the reins on. The lights in some of the display cases have been… wibbly. And, well— _colorful._ ”

“ _The Curse,_ ” Warlock breathed.

Azra ignored him. “You might have to go through maintenance, or maybe call an outside electrician — I really don’t know, but if you would just handle it, whatever that may entail, then I’ll keep you informed on all curse-related gossip.”

“Hell yes, leave the ghost lights to me, I was born for exactly this.”

“So glad to hear it. Make sure you keep receipts.”

Warlock was already headed for the door, calling over his shoulder, “Yep! On it!”

As irritated as he was with Gabriel, Azra was thankful he only had to deal with Warlock and not a string of electricians. The door swung shut, and for the first time since the stairwell, he found himself with a moment of peace. He slumped back in his chair and was trying to remember if he’d eaten anything today when his phone buzzed again.

“Like an overexcited puppy,” he muttered as he pulled out his phone and scrolled through the backread. “How did she survive before she had this echo chamber to yell into?”

> _you’re such a nerd ilu so much_   
>  _seriously tho_   
>  _i need to hear the hot museum gossip and you need to eat_   
>  _your track record states that you’ll be awful at feeding yourself this week_   
>  _dinner tonight?_   
>  _we can go to that italian place you like_   
>  _ooh or the snuffbox_   
>  _i haven’t had their curry in forever_   
>  _and tom works weeknights, you like tom_   
>  _it’s thursday it’ll be sooooo empty_   
>  _you, me, tom, and soho’s best curry_   
>  _just like old times_   
>  _cmonnnn my treat_

He skimmed through the scattershot stream of consciousness about curry, a small smile forming in spite of himself, until he caught up to her most recent messages.

> _did u acquire tea_   
>  _like actually go into the wild and brave a cafe for it or just make it in your office_   
>  _was fish girl working?_   
>  _i like fish girl i think she’s my favorite person i’ve never met_   
>  _has the curse smote your boss yet?_   
>  _would that make you the new king of the museum?_   
>  _your first royal decree should be giving fish girl a raise_   
>  _i want to keep hearing stories about her for the rest of forever, please ensure she never finds bluer waters_

_Good lord, woman._

> _you live!_

_I’m going to start leaving you in a desk drawer. Not all of us have jobs where we can be glued to our mobiles all day._

> _most of the year you do_   
>  _we hate new exhibit week_   
>  _we hate it very much_   
>  _how are you holding up?_   
>  _how many people have you had to see today?_

_Direct first-name-basis interactions? Fifteen._   
_I had to spend some time in the visitor’s hall though, that’s always a gamble._

> _oof_   
>  _look i’ll quit bugging you about dinner if you think it’ll be too much_   
>  _i do have something to show you but it’ll keep_   
>  _and i do miss you but that’ll keep too_   
>  _you just have to promise you’ll eat a nutrition tonight_

Azra drummed his fingers against the back of his phone and considered his options. He was certain there was nothing he could make a meal out of at his flat, meaning either a shopping trip or takeaway was in order. Either way it meant seeing people — having enough of an interaction to exchange words and add them to the day’s list. Might as well make it someone he was comfortable with. Besides, no matter how badly he wanted to go home and shut out the world, he always enjoyed time with Anathema once he was in the moment.

_Dinner sounds lovely actually. I just managed to outsource one of the disasters, so I shouldn’t need to be here too late. You’re sure you don’t mind being put on the playbill?_

> _course not_   
>  _i asked didn’t i_   
>  _better me than someone who can’t drive the ship right? i hate when you get stuck in an endless chase or a burning building or whatever_   
>  _the world needs more fish girls_

_Elanor is very soothing, this is true. Would that we all were so well adjusted._

> _speak for urself_   
>  _i’m extremely adjusted tyvm_   
>  _snuffbox then? 7ish?_

_Not so adjusted you know where your shift key is._

> _Ah, my apologies, Mr. Fell; I mistook you for one who possessed the wit and will to decipher modern communications. One forgets you’re sorely mired in antiquity. I shall amend my methods post-haste._

_You’re wretched. I’ll see you at 7._

> _< 3_

He briefly considered following through on the threat to leave her in a desk drawer, then decided no one but him would know either way, and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

* * *

Azra hadn’t been to the Snuffbox in ages, but it was somehow exactly how he remembered it. It was rather ordinary, as pubs went. Dim lighting made moody by tea lights in old jam jars, a menu that was simple, small, and masterfully executed, scrubbed wooden tables that could be anywhere from ten years old to a hundred. But there was something about it—some quality of light or a unique-yet-barely-perceptible smell or maybe just a subtle architectural quirk—that immediately clicked in his brain. This was a known place, in a way that very few places in London were. The first place he returned to enough to gain status as a regular. An absolutely unnecessary place, neither home nor work, chosen simply because he liked it. The place he and Anathema had stumbled into their accidental friendship, their stiff and cautious talks about dreaming slowly relaxing into weekly dinners and stories and too many pints to count. It was a familiarity that washed over him as soon as he walked in the door, and one that he knew would never sit _quite_ accurately in memory once he left.

Tom lifted his eyes from a book he had propped open on the bar long enough to exchange a slight smile and nod with Azra, then dropped his gaze back to the page. Azra took note of the other patrons in his peripherals, a woman working on her laptop near the door and a man staring into his glass at the end of the bar, as he beelined for the corner booth where Anathema sat scribbling in a notebook.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, sliding into the booth with his back facing the door. “Decided to walk instead of taking the tube.”

Anathema set her pencil in the crease of her notebook and rested her chin in her hand. “Makes sense, don’t stress it,” she said, a tiny worry line forming between her eyebrows as she stared at him from across the table. “When’s the last time you racked up fifteen names in a day?”

“Besides every day this week? I believe it was Bilton & Scaggs.”

“New exhibit weeks,” she muttered with the same pique one might attach to _you meddling kids_. The worry line deepened into a full frown. “Every day this week? Christ. You must be exhausted.”

“It’s tiring, certainly,” he said with a nod. “But it’s not as though every single one of them pulls me in. Last night I only walked through five.”

“Nothing too terrible, I hope,” she said. When Azra gave a dismissive shrug, she continued, trying to sound casual, “Anything, erm… good?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You are insatiably nosy, you know that?”

“ _Tsch_. And you’re insufferably virtuous. I’m not digging for gossip about Gabriel’s weird hero complex or whatever,” she said, her tone suggesting that she was, in fact, always ready to gossip about exactly that. “I don’t need to hear people’s deepest darkest secrets. You don’t even have to tell me who’s dreaming what, just, y’know. Cool shit like how getting swallowed by a giant fish was the most relaxing and wholesome dream you’ve ever visited. I mean, come _on_.”

Azra sighed and slumped back against the booth. “Last night was incredibly dull, if you must know. Just one long string of watching people be confused. One person was a writing utensil short and an hour late for an exam. Another was driving a lorry and seemed baffled by the pedals. Someone else was searching a house for something they never found. Very boring,” he said, drumming his fingers against the tabletop. “Didn’t you have something to show me? Or cursed artifacts, you wanted to hear about those, correct?”

“Mm-hmm. Drinks first though, before Tom throws us out for loitering. You hungry? I can… order for both of us?” She was tentative in how she framed the question, stepping through the words cautiously. Azra watched her eyes flicker to something over his shoulder, and knew her well enough to catch her real meaning. _Is Tom on the day’s list? Shall we keep it as short as possible?_

“Oh, would you?” he said, relief on full display in his voice. “He’s an understudy, but I— I’d appreciate it.”

“Yep. Back in a flash. Speak now or receive your usual.”

He gave her a nod and a grateful smile as she stood and made her way to the bar.

He’d been right, of course, about enjoying himself once he was here. The day had been a hectic blur and the urge to go straight home had been almost overpowering, but Anathema’s company was always a comfort. He wondered sometimes how he’d gone as long as he had, keeping the dreams to himself, never _entirely_ sure if he was imagining it all. In hindsight, the sprawl of his twenties and thirties had been maddeningly lonely. Just having someone to talk to about his _resonance_ , as she liked to call it, in casual and accepting terms, someone who he trusted and respected and, most importantly, _liked_ — well. Having a friend had turned his whole world on its head.

The _understudy_ terminology was something he’d adopted from her, a new way to regard an old problem. Early in their friendship, when they were still sleuthing through the fantastical nature of dreams and dreamers, she’d helped him sort through his daily lists, likening dreams to a stage and the potential dreamers to roles in the theater. The people he’d had direct and deliberate interactions with during the day — handshakes, conversations, phone calls — were the lead actors. The dreamers who were most likely to pull him in that night. Smaller, subtler exchanges such as eye contact and smiles became the understudies, or dreamers he _might_ see, but typically only if there weren’t any lead actors queued up. Written exchanges like email and texting, while deliberate, seemed to be a loophole that neither of them could explain. A way to talk without adding a name to the playbill and a medium they took full advantage of. Everyone else was the audience. People he passed by in the crowded museum or a full train car. These were the wild cards; every now and then, a strong personality would make itself known in unexpected ways, but more often than not, they were a non-issue.

And the days when he saw nobody — when he holed up in his flat with a book and turned off his phone and shut out the world — led to dreamless nights. It was an unsustainable way of life, but an appealing one nonetheless. A peace that he let himself dip into after weeks like this one.

“Sir’s ale,” Anathema said, pulling him out of his thoughts by setting two pints on the table and sliding back into her seat. “Food’s at the mercy of time.”

“You’re an angel.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Gross, heaven wishes they were so lucky. You too probably, when you find out I ordered you a salad.”

“You _didn’t_.”

“Just a side salad!”

“Need I remind you that I know where you dream and I _will_ make it my life’s mission to find a way to torment you there.”

“Oh hush, you’re still getting curry. Don’t eat the salad if you don’t want to. I just figure you probably haven’t had a single green thing in front of you since the last time I saw you.”

Azra scowled at her and picked up his pint. He tried his best to be annoyed, but found it an impossible task when she smiled and raised her glass at him from across the table.

“Okay. So,” she said, setting her glass down and folding her hands on the table. She leaned towards him, the single tea light throwing a wavering light across her face. “The sleeve.”

Azra raised his eyebrows at her. She’d been talking about getting around to _the sleeve_ for as long as he’d known her. “You’re finally planning it?”

She grinned — a wild, toothy thing that the candlelight gave a life of its own. “ _Planned_.”

“You— _No_.”

“ _Yes._ ”

“With _out_ me? When— Where did you get it done? Did you go to Eric?” His hand went instinctively to his left wrist to absently spin his wristwatch. “Anathema Device, you impossible thing, you take off your coat this instant.”

She laughed and started to wriggle out of her coat in the close confines of the booth. “Nah, Eric is great for small pieces, but I don’t think he was the one for this project. And it’s not done,” she said, pulling her cardigan off her left shoulder. “Just some of the lines and a bit of color. It’s gonna be a long haul.”

“I can’t believe this is the first I’m hearing of this,” Azra said, his voice balancing precariously between _wounded_ and _petulant_. He nudged the candle jar closer to her and leaned in to examine the tattoo.

It was a botanical theme, like she’d been talking about for years. The outline of a large flower bloomed on her shoulder, it’s petals curling towards her collarbone and shoulder blade where they disappeared under her tank top. He thought it might be a magnolia, but couldn’t quite be sure in its half-finished state and the flickering light. Beneath the huge bloom, her upper arm was a criss-cross of branches — delicate and flowering near her shoulder, lush and leafy as they moved down her arm, bare winter twigs above her elbow. The one splash of color was a vine of some sort, twisting its way from shoulder to elbow, a tendril of green that crept in and out of the branches until it vanished into a fern growing above the crook of her arm.

“My dear, this is considerably more than _a few lines_ ,” Azra breathed, fully lifting the candle and holding up to her arm. He moved it methodically up and down the length of her arm, ignoring the heat building in his hand, as he marvelled at the level of detail. “Wait— when did you have this done? It looks healed.”

“Ah. Um… A month or so ago?” she said sheepishly. “Oh, _stop_ with the wounded doe eyes, you’re impossible to pin down outside of texts and I wanted to show you in person.”

“It just seems a bit _sudden_ ,” he said, setting the candle down and shaking the heat out of his fingers. “Talking about it is one thing. I didn’t know you’d started planning this.”

“I didn’t exactly mean to, but the opportunity fell in my lap. I went in to Earthly Delights and I was just going to get a quick flash tattoo, something small and weird to go next to the sword, and I started talking to the new apprentice there, and before I knew it he was sketching _this_ , and then we just started planning and—”

“An _apprentice_ did this?”

“Mm-hmm. Cheap too, since I let him take a lot of creative liberties.”

He turned his attention back to the tattoo as she launched into an excited description of what she and her artist were planning. In the slightly diminished candlelight, shadows moved across it in hypnotizing new ways, throwing new details into sharp and fleeting focus. Anathema talked about shading, and Azra stared into the bare branches, the shadows making them sway and tangle together. He moved his eyes to the green boughs as she talked about other plants she wanted to add, the dancing light making the leaves furl and unfurl around each other. She said something about colors and he watched the flowers bloom and the vines creep.

“ _Az._ ”

“Hmm?” He shook himself out of his daze to her frowning at him. “Oh. Terribly sorry. Lost myself for a moment there.”

“Do you… y’know. Like it?”

He blinked at her, and wondered if it was modesty or if she truly didn’t realize she’d just shown him the most beautiful tattoo he’d ever seen in his life.

“It’s _remarkable_ ,” he managed. “That’s a truly stunning piece of art you have there. It suits you incredibly well too, I can see why you jumped at the opportunity.”

She let out a small chuckle and shrugged her cardigan back over her shoulder, adjusting her glasses at the top of the movement. “Yeah, it’s— I—” she fumbled with the compliment a bit, stammering her way through several failed responses before landing softly on, “Thanks. It’s nice to finally have it started. I’ve been talking about it for so long that it was starting to feel like it would never be anything but an idea.”

“Well then,” he hummed thoughtfully and lifted his glass. “To ideas realized?”

Anathema rolled her eyes. “You’re such a sap,” she said, but she spoke around a smile as she clinked her glass against his.

* * *

Dinner with Anathema kept him out late enough that Tracy had closed the shop by the time he made it home.

He _liked_ Tracy. Really, he did. She was an old friend, a dream come true of a landlord, a kindred spirit in many ways— but the day’s list was already very long. Longer than usual and it included Anathema. Throwing another strong personality in the mix, and another person he knew so well at that, was just asking for a restless night. Which is how he found himself tiptoeing up the stairwell that separated their flats, and making an awkward sort of lunge over the especially creaky steps at the top. His key was in the lock when he heard Tracy’s door open from behind him. It took every ounce of willpower he had left to not let his head thunk against the door in frustration.

“Stars above, love, I know it’s a new exhibit week and all, but it’s half ten,” came Tracy’s concerned voice from behind him. “Everything alright? You just say the word and I’ll march right down to that museum and give them a piece of my mind. It’s not right, them working you like this.”

Azra closed his eyes and grimaced around a sigh, then resigned himself to an expression of pleasant neutrality as he turned to face her. “Ah. That won’t be necessary, but I’ll keep the offer in mind. I actually met Anathema for dinner after work and we had quite a bit of catching up to do.”

Her face softened at that. “Oh, _wonderful._ I’ve always liked that one. A good head on her shoulders. How is dear Ana? I haven’t seen her round the shop in ages.”

“Busy as ever,” said Azra. He smiled in spite of himself and leaned into the small talk. Tracy was officially on the main list, there was no undoing that at this point, so he tried to enjoy pleasantries exchanged for the sake of pleasantries. He reminded himself that on a normal day, he considered her a safe person to interact with. A bit more exciting and colorful than most, but very rarely did anything seem to get under her skin enough to become troubling dreams.

She asked if Tom had been working and how Anathema’s bakery was doing, and if they both looked like they’d been eating enough. He told her about Anathema’s tattoo and she filled him in on the latest gossip about her regular patrons. They chatted about the weather and the newest book in the detective series they’d both been following for years, then conversation hit a natural cul-de-sac and they both smiled, nodded through their goodnights, and drifted off to their respective flats.

It was a simple interaction; friendly and utterly mundane and probably the sort of thing most people wouldn’t give a second thought to. Azra toed off his shoes and wondered if he’d be seeing her in one of her bizarre gardens later.

* * *

At first blush, it was impossible to tell who drew him in. There were none of the markers he normally associated with Warlock or Anathema, none of Gabriel’s dramatics or Tracy’s colorful backdrops, nothing that hinted at Elanor or Tom. There was simply a crowded stretch of pavement in a nondescript city. The tide of people flowed in both directions around him, a sea of faces he could almost, but not quite, focus on. He shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably as he scanned the crowd, trying to pick out the dreamer. It was entirely possible this was someone new — someone from the visitor’s hall who had managed to latch on, one of the strangers at the pub or even someone from the walk home. Less likely, but entirely within the realm of possibilities.

A tug came from behind him. The invisible tether that tied him to whoever’s mind this was. He’d tried to explain the tether to Anathema before, but the best he’d ever managed was to liken it to breathing. Following it was something he did without thought, something he _had_ to do. He could choose to not shadow the dreamer, but only momentarily, and resisting it for too long would result in him being dragged along forcefully, dizzy and disoriented. Far better to follow and observe.

He turned in time to see a familiar bright blue ponytail disappear into the crowd. Elanor, then. He let out a relieved breath and followed her.

“Hello, dear,” he said, folding his hands behind his back and falling into step beside her. “Always nice to see a friendly face in these parts.”

Elanor said nothing, of course. Dreamers were oblivious to his presence, but he still found himself talking to his favorites. She frowned into the fog of oblivious faces in front of her as she walked, shot a quick glance over her shoulder in the direction she’d come from, then peered down at the shovel she was carrying, held out in front of her like a dowsing rod.

“That’s new,” Azra said. “The cityscape too. I do hope everything’s alright with you. You’re normally so consistent.”

Elanor paused and waggled the shovel in front of her, then turned and followed it down a new street. Buildings rose up on either side of them, a labyrinth of steel and mirrored glass fading into view as the crowd thinned. There was a determined set to her jaw, as though she were searching for something specific, but Azra knew that was his own projection on the scene. Dreamers tended to be inexplicably aimless and endlessly distractible.

When their path through the city-maze came to a dead end, Elanor let the blade of the shovel hit the ground with a dull clunk. She leaned her weight into it and stared around at the walls pressing in on her, up at where the buildings disappeared into some ubiquitous brightness, back down to the reflective surface in front of her. There was nothing here, nothing Azra could see anyway. Even the people had disappeared, leaving her alone and boxed in on three sides. He was wondering if she might use the shovel to dig her way beneath the labyrinth, sit and rest in this quiet place, turn around and find a new path through the maze— when she let out a delighted cry.

 _“You,”_ she said into the wall of glass in front of her. “Hello, you.”

Azra peered over her shoulder, following her gaze into the window. Only… it _wasn’t_ a window. It wasn’t even actually a building. It was a fish tank. A great wall of water loomed on the other side of the glass, light shining through it in broken, shimmering patterns. Clouds of minnows and seahorses billowed like smoke, a whale drifted by somewhere in the far distance, and hovering at exactly eye level with Elanor, its scales reflecting far too many colors, was a fish the size of a small car.

“There’s our girl,” Azra laughed fondly. “You had me going for a minute there.”

Elanor glanced at her shovel, then back at the fish. “It’s concrete,” she said, giving the ground a few taps. “I’ll never break through it. Not with th— _oh._ ” She took a step closer and pressed her cheek up against the glass, squinting at something Azra couldn’t see. “Clever.”

Then, she stepped back, lifted the shovel over her head, and plunged it into the glass.

Azra stumbled back as far as the tether would comfortably allow. “Oh. Oh dear. Why is _that_ the logical course of action?” Drowning in someone’s dream wouldn’t physically hurt him, the dreamer usually woke up before things went that far anyway, but it was still a deeply unpleasant way to spend one’s evening.

But the glass didn’t break. The shovel stuck firmly in its surface and she pulled it to the side like a lever. A ladder, made of the same glass as the building, slid out of the wall. Water trickled from underneath it, forming a puddle on the ground between the two of them. She let the shovel clatter to the ground and began to climb.

“Oh, _honestly_ ,” Azra grumbled. “You’re not serious. You mean to make me climb _that?_ What happened to soothing?” The tether went taut and he took a reluctant step forward. “Glass-bottomed boat cruises and seaside castles and—”

And the puddle swallowed him.

And the tether snapped.

He sank like a stone.

His logical side worked to assure him that human bodies didn’t _actually_ sink like this. That the air in his lungs would work to pull him to the surface, that he was not actually accelerating, and certainly not rushing _away_ from Elanor. Because that was impossible. This was a dream and being separated from the dreamer meant she had woken up, and he was either slipping into a new dreamer’s space or waking up himself. There was no alternative.

His logical side, however, was growing smaller and quieter by the moment. The mouth of the puddle was a shrinking splotch of light wavering far above him and there was no _tether_. No connection to the dream he’d just been in and no new dreamer pulling him to the next stage. He was alone and this was not a dream, and he somehow knew these two truths with shocking, absolute clarity. Alone and sinking, falling, the water growing colder and darker, and the _pressure_ — an ocean’s weight settling on top of him, growing heavier by the second. He tried to push back, to flail his limbs into something resembling swimming, a desperate attempt to pull himself up, but his limbs were too heavy, they were weighing him down into the dark and the cold and he was going to be crushed and it was too _much_.

Up. He needed to go up. To the surface. To light. Air. He needed air. He was a mile underwater and his body was trying to take a breath and there was nothing his mind could do to stop it and why wasn’t his body _listening_ to his mind?

He squeezed his eyes shut.

He opened his mouth.

And he hit the bottom.

He pulled in a desperate gasp, his animal instincts finally winning the fight with his mind, and — it was air. Or, at any rate, not water. His eyes flew open as he tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. He was soaked, but the… puddle? Ocean? The _body of water_ was gone. He was out of breath, his chest aching as he laid on his back and sucked in one huge gulp of air after another, all of them vital but none of them quite _enough_. He was cold, a chill making itself gradually known the longer he laid there. And perhaps most curious of all, he was _terrified_. There was the existential matter of being suddenly and inexplicably untethered, but he was also frightened in a much more tangible, primal way. His heart raced. His hands trembled uncontrollably. He could feel sweat beading above his lip and under his arms in spite of the chill. He felt _sick_ with adrenaline.

He forced himself to sit up. There had to be a dreamer here— there _had_ to be. This was some type of night terror or a disconnect brought on by sleepwalking or he was locked in someone’s sleep paralysis. If he could just _find the dreamer_ he could figure this out. Tears, hot and panicked, prickled at the corners of his eyes as he scanned the space around him.

He noticed the swing first, dangling in the edge of his vision, jerking a saccadic rhythm like a drop of water on a hot skillet. In the strangest way, it made _sense_. His body was a riot of fear and confusion, and he still had no sense of where he was, but the swing provided him with a mental anchor. Of course there was a swing here. There was _supposed_ to be a swing here. A swing and— yes, a swingset too— _obviously_ it was attached to a swingset, it was ridiculous to assume otherwise, and there it was, shimmering into focus like a mirage as he turned his attention to it. The swing’s sporadic dance slowed to a gentle sway as the play structure warbled into focus.

He squinted and tried to concentrate, suddenly aware of the deep gloom all around him. A swingset meant a playground. Playgrounds meant children. Families. Gloom or no, they were safe places. This was fine, he just had to ride it out, everything was fine. He scrubbed at his face with both palms, and stumbled to his feet—

—And there was the dreamer, staring slack-jawed at the swing, backlit by firelight, and… oh… the _fire_ seemed like something Azra should have noticed sooner. It seemed like it was probably important, the way the other end of the play structure was engulfed in flames, the slide already reduced to char, the fire creeping towards the swing — but he found himself trying to place the dreamer instead. Everything about his appearance, from the mess of red hair falling into his eyes to the tattoos covering his arms, seemed like details that would stick in Azra’s mind, but it was no one he recognized. An audience member then?

The dreamer frowned. Curled his lip as he stared up at the sky, then back down at the swing. “How the hell…” he muttered. His eyes darted into the gloom beyond the playground, a note of unease creeping into his voice when he said, “He one of yours then? It doesn’t change anything, dump all the water and weirdos in here you want, it’ll still— I’ll keep—” He trailed off, his speech dissolving into a frustrated growl. He shot another glare at the swingset, then started to pace.

Azra peered into the darkness, trying to follow the dreamer’s line of sight, trying to see who he was talking to, but the playground’s bubble of safety seemed to shrink around him as he did, the firelight flickering like a dying candle. There was _nothing_ beyond this point of light — a truth he suddenly knew in his bones. Panic was kicking in his chest again when he turned back to the dreamer.

“ _Terrible_ dream. I don’t know who you think you are, pulling me in like this, but you are the _worst_ audience member I have ever had the displeasure of sharing the theater with,” he said, reaching desperately for familiarity.

The dreamer stopped pacing. Moving with glacial speed, he turned and stared directly into Azra’s eyes. “You can see me?”

A _lucid_ dreamer then. He’d never met another one besides Anathema and had always wondered if she was an anomaly. “Unfortunately.”

“ _You_ came into _my_ space,” the dreamer bit back. “Which, I might add, shouldn’t even be possible, _and_ you brought a bloody ocean’s worth of water with you, so you can say goodbye to safety.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the sputtering fire.

“Safety?” Azra said, his voice creeping towards shrill. He looked around at the ruined playground, the dying fire, the heavy darkness. “This is your idea of safety?”

The dreamer narrowed his eyes. “I don’t exactly have much to work with,” he said, speaking slow and condescending. He jumped as one of the burning beams behind him cracked, then collapsed, the embers rolling into the puddle. It hissed, spit, then went dark with a curl of smoke.

And in the gloom, something… _rippled_. Like the rainbowed skin on top of a soap bubble, if such a thing could be made entirely of shadows.

Azra felt his spark of anger wink out. When he spoke, his voice sounded very small, and very far away. “What is that.”

“I’m… not exactly sure. The light keeps it away though.”

“And when the light is gone?”

“Hopefully you wake up before that happens,” he said, his expression suddenly unreadable as the light went dimmer. “If not, you run.”

Azra stared into the shadows, trying to see the ripple again. If he knew where it was… “Run _where?_ ”

“Doesn’t really matter. But it’s better than staying put.”

But… that couldn’t be right, could it? The darkness was made of _nothing._ He couldn’t run into the nothing, no one could, it wasn’t _for_ them, they’d suffocate or be absorbed into the _thing_ that was out there or maybe they’d just end, and all of those options were absurd, this was _absurd._

He stared at the dreamer. Strained his eyes against the dying light to try and see him. Tried to hold onto a point of light as the gloom rippled again.

Azra shut his eyes—

—And then he was staring at the ceiling above his bed, sweaty and breathless, the incoherent feelings of _trapped, flee, gloom, TRAPPED_ sticking to his insides, even as reality started to creep over him. He fumbled for his phone, vaguely registered the time as _unforgivably early_ , then pulled up Anathema’s number and dialed anyway.

Her end of the line clicked over. “…mrrf— Az, whatthefuck.”

“Ana—”

“What fucking _time_ — Oh Jesus, what’s wrong.”

“Nothing. Early.”

A dramatic groan. “I sweartogod—”

“Anathema, I _dreamed_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs: being trapped underwater and the panic that causes, mention of drowning, being stalked by an unseen/unseeable creature
> 
> (there is a detail in the upper right of the image that your eyes might have passed over if your brightness was turned down. i implore you to scroll back up and zoom in and make the same shocked-pikachu face that i did when call showed it to me)

**Author's Note:**

> call is on [tumblr](https://call-of-the-ocean.tumblr.com/) and [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/call_of_the_ocean/)  
> diminishingreturns is on [tumblr](https://jessicafish.tumblr.com/)
> 
> we're friendly, come say hi!


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